Emperor Nero is was the insane one. He murdered his wife and daughter. Hence, I think it is simply inappropriate to compare recent CEOs or business students to Nero, unless they are completely insane. Emperor that “was fiddling while his city burned” was unable or simply did not want to perceive societies values (assuming Roman society of that time did value their very property and people, since Nero was denounced even in ancient roman texts). Business students and CEOs nowadays, however, cannot be said to not distinguish between right or wrong. The reasoning behind indifferent attitude “while the city is burning” is completely different and cannot be addressed in a manner similar to Nero issue. Indeed, CEOs, when acting in an unethical manner, are often driven by economical benefits; the same most likely applies to the business students. Non of them act in an inadequately harmful way just upon their whim or for the sake of fun/evil. I personally think that Mr. Jones is over-complicating the issue and is addressing using a excessively harsh comparison. However, the image of Nero could effectively used as literary hyperbole to portray actions of contemporary businessmen, but not to explain them.
Good example of “fiddling while the city is burning” behavior may easily be found in the pharmaceutical industry. Honestly, the whole industry could be simply labeled as oligopoly, midway through to monopoly. “Isn’t it illegal in the land of opportunity and equal rights?!” – one would ask. It officially is, but there are ways around it, especially in pharmaceutical industry. One of the ways is to simply pay the smaller generic competitors to leave the industry, since purchasing the company right away is after all illegal. Big Pharma Companies indeed do so, due to the fact that they are so incredibly big, wealthy and powerful. Huge brand names are able to easily buy the exit ticket for generic small firms – it is just humorously easy for them to do.
Drug-making business has its very own distinctive and unique traits – they own our trust. As a matter of fact, we, customers, are victims as Pharma Firms, in collaboration with doctors that write prescriptions, have complete control over our health-related decision making. Thus, it is just so simple for Big Pharma Names to engage in fraudulent activities. In recent years there have been numerous frauds. Pharmaceutical companies quite often misrepresent their products in marketing campaigns, and what is left for us to simply trust them. Every fraud case was followed by fines imposed by U.S. Department of Justice in attempt to resolve allegations of fraudulent marketing practices. However, it just seems that the Pharma Firms just do not seem care about the charges. Indeed, the penalties are almost negligible considering the size of corporations involved.
While we are suffering from the diseases and “burning” in fever, pharmaceutical companies “fiddle”, at the same time counting profits.
How Big Pharma rips you off on drugs.
Recent 6 “Big Pharma” frauds.
Big Pharma’s Big Fines.
Dilemmas... 